Three Steps to Avoid Burnout

I don’t know about you, but moving from months of forced family time with very little to do outside our home to a full autumn, our schedule was more overwhelming than I anticipated. As a football coach’s wife, fall is always our busiest time of year. We know we will eat dinner from the concession stands and finish loads of laundry late at night. It’s how our family has always had to function.

We had the chance to slow down for the first time in 2020. But because we didn’t know what would happen each day, we embraced the monotony and found different ways to fill our time.

One son started guitar lessons and diligently practiced. At the same time, the other embraced tennis (the one social activity our state allowed other than walking) and played so frequently he made his high school tennis team.

As we shifted from an empty calendar to weeks full of commitments, I discovered I no longer had the stamina to handle an overflowing calendar of tasks pulling me in multiple directions. I’d lost my chaos mojo, and I was heading straight toward burnout.

God designed our bodies with internal warning systems. When we start to get overloaded internally, we experience physical signs. Stress, fear, and anger activate our adrenal glands, which can work overtime, elevating our cortisol levels.

Our bodies can only function in a state of elevated cortisol for so long before the impact is significant. We may experience weight gain, brain fog, sleeplessness, and even chronic illness such as type two diabetes.

David likely understood what it was like to live in a state of elevated stress. Before Saul died and David took his place on the throne of Israel, Saul sent his men to murder him. Many of the psalms we have are from David’s time on the run, including Psalms 118:6-10, which says,

The Lord is with me; I will not be afraid. What can mere mortals do to me?
The Lord is with me; he is my helper. I look in triumph on my enemies.

It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in humans.
It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in princes.
All the nations surrounded me, but in the name of the Lord I cut them down. (NIV)

During the months when our family’s calendar was bareboned, I found room in my daily routine to read The Bible Recap and extended my morning workouts. As a result, I was avoiding burnout and reducing my stress level by exercising.

Even though my job never slowed down, I spent extra time taking refuge in God, leaning on him rather than humans.

I’ve relearned more about God’s character in the past year of reading than I have in the prior several years combined. Unfortunately, I’ve also experienced more criticism and shaming from the church community in that same timeline.

Just as our physical body has an internal warning system, so does the body of Christ. The inner groanings are no longer contained within the walls of the buildings anymore, and my experiences are not isolated.

In a recent article, Ed Stetzer said,

The greatest obstacles to evangelicalism are internal to the movement. In writing on the evangelical movement for nearly 20 years, a recurring truth is that its biggest problem is not from external subversion. To be sure, there are many non-Christian leaders or ideologies that threaten to co-opt the mission of the church. However, the greatest obstacles to the flourishing of the evangelical movement – particularly in regards to substantively engaging our failings on race – have arisen from within.

When church leaders reduce complex ideas to simplistic buzzwords, the end result is always irrational fear and suspicion rather than honest dialogue.

Burnout appears for numerous reasons. If you show signs of stress or fear, try taking a few tips from David, just as I did:

• First, understand that the situation you’re facing has layers of nuance and trust that God is big enough to handle each one. He will even take care of the ones you haven’t thought of! Don’t lean into the temptation to reduce God to man’s size.
• Second, take refuge in God. Lean on him rather than humans for wisdom, discernment, and guidance. Open your Bible and read it rather than simply listening to someone else’s interpretation of a passage or verse. As Ed Stetzer noted, this may require some honest dialogue where disagreement remains. That’s OK! It’s how we grow.
• Third, take care of your body. David was a shepherd, and while it’s not noted in Psalms 118, we know from other passages that he was healthy and fit. How else could he have led all those soldiers into battle year after year?

As we head into 2022, will you consider joining me by adding these disciplines to your daily routine? Maybe together we can heal some wounds and avoid burnout at the same time.

Beth Walker is a football coach’s wife and mom of two energetic boys. She strives to encourage those around her to pursue their best lives in Jesus whether she is near the game field, in church, or at the local coffee shop. As a writer, Beth has been striving to find her voice through seeing Jesus in the ordinary and extraordinary of daily life. She blogs at Lessons from the Sidelines.

Photograph © Gift Habeshaw, used with permission